VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VU THI HIEN SOCIO-EDUCATIONAL FACTORS AFFECTING THE STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN LEARNING ENGLISH LANGUAGE : A CASE STUDY IN SON THINH UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN VAN CHAN- YEN BAI Yếu tố xã hội- giáo dục ảnh hưởng đến động cơ học Tiếng Anh của học sinh M. MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10 HA NOI - 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VU THI HIEN SOCIO-EDUCATIONAL FACTORS AFFECTING THE STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN LEARNING ENGLISH LANGUAGE : A CASE STUDY IN SON THINH UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN VAN CHAN- YEN BAI Yếu tố xã hội- giáo dục ảnh hưởng đến động cơ học Tiếng Anh của học sinh M. MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10 SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN THI THANH HUONG. HA NOI - 2010 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgemenfs.
1 Table of confenfS.QcQQn SH HH nh nhe 11 List of figures and tables. ence e necesvi Part I: INTRODUCTION. ch enna nà ki eae | 1. Objectives of the Study .-ccc Q2 2n SH nh hs.--- S22 2S n SH nh nh kh Ha2 1.
Methods of the study. ccc cece cece eee ce een e eee e nee ST nh kh nh nhện 2 1. Scope of the Study. cece cece cee c cence eee eee ence eens ene ene nh nh nh ees 2 1.Significance of the StUdY.
ccc ccc cece eee eee nent e eens eee e nen nh eae 3 1.Design of the study.- Ăn SH HH Ki nh nh nh nh nh nh kế 3 Part I: DEVELOPMENT Chapter I: LITERATURE REVIEW.0 cc ccc ecececee eee e ee nhe4 1. Theoretical background of motivafion.1 Definition of motivation. ccece cence cence e ence e ee nh ha 4 1. Theories of mofIVAfIOT.
Types of mofiVafIOn.-- c2 cent eee e ee nh nhà kh ha 12 1. ch nh hy 13 1.- ee eee eee eens teens ea eeeeneeees 13 1.- Q2 SH ng nh nhe 13 1. SH SH nh ng kg 14 1. The roles of motivation in second language learning.
Gardner’s socio-educational modđel. Social and educational factors affecting mofivation.Q cence eee n cece ST KT KT ng nh rệt 16 1. c2 eee ee eee nh nh ng 18 1. Socio-educational factors affecting motivafion.- 19 ID ha Ha.
EE EEE Een EEE EEE EEE EEE EEE 20 Chapter II: CONTEXT OF THE STUDY. SH HH nh n KH nh nhà 21 2.c c2 ng ene nh nh vn aags 21 2. ch n KH nh nh tenes 22 Chapter II: METHODOLOGY 3. The InÍOTTMATS.- cọ HH nh nha 23 3.
The data collection 1nstrumen. c2 SH SH SH ng KH nh nh nh vn y 24 Chapter IV: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION.c c0 Q2 2n ng ng HH vn ky 25 4.‹-- ng ng nh nh he 25 4. Attitudes towards English. Participants’ self-evaluation of their learning English.
Participants’ investment in learning English. Participants’ learning sfrafeg1es.--c cà cà sàn se se28 4. Participants’ Using Language Opporfunifles. Support for Participants’ Learning English at 4.
Participants’ Reported Challenges in and Opportunities for Learning English. Students’ awareness of the importance of English. Students’ self-reported difficulties in learning English. SH HH HH nh 32 4.
Conditions for learning English. nen EEE EEE EEE E EEE EEE EEE EEE EEE EEE EE 33 Part III : RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION. On students’ mofIVafIOn. Ăn nh nh ee34 1.
On social factors affecting their motivafion. On educational factors affecting their mofivafion. Recommendations for teaching. Limitations of the study.- SH HH nh nh nh nh rẽ 37 4.
Suggestion for further stUdy.ccccSnn nh nh nh nh kh nh re 38 |›{0()4. 39 Appendices VI LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Dornyei's framework of L2 motivation (1994: 7§).--«- 10 Figure 2: Williams and Burden's (1997) framework of L2 motivation (adapted from Dornyel, 2001: 2). ce 12 Table 1: Participants’ Profile (N= 150). cece cece cece e cence eee e ee eee ea ene khe 24 Table 2: Participants’ attitudes towards, and purposes of, learning English (N=150).
25 Table 3: Participants’ weekly investment in learning English at home in terms of time.26 Table 4: Participants’ strategies for learning English at home (N=150). 27 Table 5: Using Language ÔpporfUunIfies.- e cece ene se. 28 Table 6: Support Available to Participants’ Learning English (N=150).28 Table 7: Parents’ Attitudes towards Their Children’s Learning English (N=150). Rationale: In recent years, Viet Nam has been opening its door to the world and to foreign investment.
English is considered to play a crucial role in leading the country’s path to the modernization and industrialization. Besides working skills, knowledge, experiences, high English proficiency is extremely needed if people would like to have a good job in many fields such as economics, politics, cultures, science, technology and tourism. It is obvious that English is in a great demand in our society now, and it is made a compulsory subject at all kinds of schools in our country from the secondary schools to universities. However, English teaching and learning in Viet Nam is still criticized to be far from satisfaction.
For example, regarding the students’ proficiency in English, only a few people (in big cities) can speak English fluently and use it effectively in their work. Most of the students after some years learning English at school do not gain high score in their state exam, especially the students in remote areas. The quality of teaching and learning English in Viet Nam is, there for, a big issue that all teachers, researchers and linguistic professors have been concerned about. Efforts have been made to find out the solutions to those issues.
In process of teaching and learning English, there are many factors affecting the success of a language learner such as learners’ factors, teachers’ factors, learning language opportunities, social factors, educational factors. Among those factors, social and educational factors may affect not only the students’ learning outcome but also their motivation to learn English. This issue is more important to disadvantaged areas where both social and educational environments may not be conducive to English language learning and teaching. Being a teacher of English in disadvantaged areas I see that the socio-educational factors may affect much on the students’ quality of English learning.
Therefore, it is strongly desirable for me to propose an investigation into the influences of socio-educational factors to the students’ motivation in Son Thinh upper secondary school in Yen Bai. The intention in doing this research is to figure out the motivation of the students in English learning and to examine the influences of the socio-educational factors to their motivation. Objectives of the study: This study is aimed to investigate the motivation in learning English among the 10 graders at Son Thinh high school in Van Chan -Yen Bai. To be more specific, this study is aimed to achieve the following objectives: a.
To investigate factors affecting students in learning English b. To examine the influence of the social-educational factors to students’ motivation in learning English.Research questions: The study was carried out with the view to finding out the answers to two research questions below: * What is the students’ motivation to learn English at Son Thinh high school? * To what extent is their motivation influenced by the local socio-educational factors? 1. Methods of the study: This is a quantitative and qualitative research. To find the answers for the above research questions, the data is collected from the questionnaires and interviews.
Scope of the study: The main focus of the study is on the investigation of the students’ motivation and the influences of the local socio-educational factors to the students’ motivation. Given the aim of the study, I limited myself to focus on students in Son Thinh high school, situated in Van Chan (a remote area of Yen Bai mountainous province). The study is conducted with a group of 150 tenth-form students at Son Thinh high school. A questionnaire will be administered to this number of students, and then about 10 questionnaire respondents will be chosen according to their willingness for semi- structured interviews.
Significance of the study: This study is carried out with a hope that language teachers, especially those teaching in remote areas, may be fully aware of the role and the importance of the socio- educational factors toward students’ motivation to learn a second language, from the factors affecting Son Thinh students’ motivation in learning English (especially socio- educational factors), the teachers may find appropriate activities or methods to increase students’ motivation to learn English better. Design of the study: Part A- Introduction: provides rationales, aims of the study, research questions, scope, and the significance of the study and its design. Part B- Development: consists of four chapters + Chapter I: Literature review on theoretical background of motivation and socio- educational factors affecting students’ motivation in second language learning. + Chapter II: Context of the study: This chapter introduces the social context and educational context for the study.
+ Chapter III: Methodology: this chapter introduces subjects and data collection instruments. + Chapter IV: Data analysis and discussion. Part C: Conclusion: This part presents conclusions, implications, limitations and suggestions for further study. PART I: DEVELOPMENT Chapter I: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter reviews some of the most important issues in the theories of motivation for learning and teaching language in general.
Two mains parts taken into consideration are theoretical background of motivation and socio-educational factors affecting students’ motivation in second language learning. Theoretical background of motivation: 1.1 Definition of motivation: The word motivation is coined from the Latin word "movere", which means to move. “Move” means the changes of something, sometimes it happens externally that we can see; sometimes it occurs internally that no one can see. Motivation appears to be simple and easy but so difficult to define.
It is an abstract concept, and there are various definitions of motivation which have been proposed. Gardner (1985:10) states that “Motivation refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language”. He points out four aspects involving motivation such as a goal, an effort, a desire to attain he goal and a favorable towards the activity. Littlewood (1998:53) gives his viewpoint of motivation as follows “In second language learning as in every field of human learning, motivation is the crucial force which determines whether a learner embanks on a task at all, how much energy he devotes to it, and how long he perseveres.
It is a complex phenomenon and includes many components: the individual’s drive, the need for achievement and success, security, desire for stimulation and new experience, and so on”. He emphasizes the components increasing motivation in second language learning, they are individual’s drive, need for achievement, security and desire for new experience. Another concept of motivation stated by Ellis (1997:75) is that “Motivation involves the attitudes and affective states that influence the degree of effort that learner make to learn a second language”. Generally, he thinks that motivation in second language learning involves the individual’s desire to do so.
In short, there are many viewpoints in defining motivation. However, general speaking, motivation is the willingness of a person to reach a particular goal or in other words: motivation is something which gives an individual the desire to perform some activity. In second language learning, motivation is one of the major factors contributing to one’s success. “Many researchers consider motivation as one of the main elements that determines success in developing a second or foreign language; it determines the extent of active, personal involvement in second language learning” (Oxford & Shearin: 1994).